Investigation of Design Criteria for the Type of Gabion Walls

In civil engineering, connecting two different levels each other to provide the essential safety is a common problem and in solving this problem retaining structures are widely used. In this study, the design criteria of gabion retaining wall which is a kind of retaining wall was investigated by using Taguchi Method. Parameters which affect the design of gabion retaining wall are height, length of base, wall angle and angle of internal friction and slope of backfill and 16 different Taguchi design tables were formed by these using parameters. These design tables were modelled by using computer program and analyzed. As a result of computer analyses, safety factors of sliding and overturning of gabion wall and tensile strength of gabion basket wire mesh were obtained. By using the computer analysis results, “S/N, Signal/Noise”, “Variance” and “Optimization” analyses were made for each Taguchi design. According to result of these analyses, parameters effective in the design of gabion retaining wall and design values which have maximum and minimum safety factor was determined.